KPA And Vintage Stereo Receiver

Harmon Kardon? Marantz? Pioneer? Something else?

The Kemper will sound pretty much like a guitar on a CD sounds through your receiver/speakers.

You can connect the Kemper Main Outs (they are analog - no conversion needed) to ALMOST any of the available stereo Input pairs.

But, DON'T USE the Phono input on the receiver. It has a special EQ circuit for the signal from a record player.

You are correct - the inputs are RCA jacks. So, you would want two 1/4" to RCA cable.

The receiver is designed for a -20 to -10 db signal, so the Kemper Master Volume should be turned down to that level to prevent unwanted distortion.

Also, the Loudness switch on the receiver should be OFF for most accurate sound.

I think you just made a great "bang for the buck" score.

You got a 27w RMS per side, into 8 ohms stereo amplifier with multiple inputs, multiple speaker outs, analog AM and FM, for less than the price of something like this:

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For the Kemper, either of these Inputs will work:

Tape-1 Play/CD
or
Tape-2 Play

Tape-1 and Tape-2 both also have REC outputs, for recording Radio to tape, Record Player to tape, or recording from Tape-1's output to Tape-2 (dubbing mode).

So, you could connect the Kemper to Tape-1 Play/CD, and record it on whatever is connected to Tape-2 REC ( a DAW, an audio interface for a computer, your phone, etc...). It looks like you push both Tape-1 and Tape-2 buttons on the front panel to do that.

Is there an input that will bypass the pre amp and go straight to the power amp ? If you go into the tape input the signal may be too hot and the pre amp section of the receiver may color the sound.

No, I think there's no way. A stereo device like this is meant to amplify line-level signals. As paults correctly wrote, the phono stage adds a further preamp for the turntable cartridge.

And, let's face it: every single part of this amp (poweramp included) will colour the sound!

Generally speaking, every and any audio devices changes the input signal (apart from the amplitude of course): it's just a matter of "how much". There's nothing like a perfect transparency.

Also consider that the response of an amp is dependent on its load (i.e. loudspeaker(s)). So, while you can get an idea about an amp's characteristics by looking at the specs (if they're complete), you won't be able to say how it will sound with a given cab until you couple them.
It might be worth underlying that the signal outputted by the amp itself changes because of the cab you connect, let alone the overall sound which, of course, depends on both the devices.

I tried it into a nice stereo amplifier and it did not sound good. When I plugged it straight into my amp head it sounded better.